Sunday, June 15, 2014

Window on Eurasia: The Three Faces of Putin’s Aggression in Ukraine

Paul
Goble

Staunton, June 15 – In Ukraine, Vladimir
Putin’s Russia is acting either as a failed state that cannot control the
movement of heavy military equipment by independent groups across its borders
or as a state sponsor of terrorism by such groups or an aggressor state that
has invaded a neighboring sovereign state – or most likely as some combination
of the three.

There are no other possibilities, however
much the Putin regime seeks to confuse the situation and however much some
Western governments want to accept Moscow’s obfuscation lest they be forced to
make the hard choices required if they were to acknowledge this reality and the
dangers it represents.

Although it is the least likely at
least in a pure form, the possibility that Russia has become a failed state is
far and away the most frightening.To
understand why, it is necessary to remember that a failed state is not one on
which there are no powerful institutions but rather a territory on which there
is no central control.

That combination is often forgotten, but
it shouldn’t be. In Somalia, for example, there were powerful militant groups but
no central government worthy of the name; and it was the presence of the former
and the absence of the latter that ultimately led to the humiliation and
withdrawal of American forces.

If Russia were to become again a
failed state – and it certainly displayed elements of that status in the 1990s –
the challenge to the world would be enormous. Not only is the Russian
Federation far larger and more economically important than any other failed
state has ever been, but it has an enormous arsenal, including nuclear weapons.

However, if one accepts Moscow’s
claims that the militants in southeastern Ukraine are getting arms from Russia
and that the Russian government has nothing to do with that, no other
conclusion is possible. From that it follows that Russia is moving in the
direction of state failure because it is unable or unwilling to control
powerful institutions on its territory.

Overcoming that condition will be
difficult if not impossible from the outside because any Western action almost
certainly would exacerbate rather than minimize some aspects of state failure
on a scale no one has ever faced before.But acting as if this danger doesn’t exist, while accepting Moscow’s
claims that it is not directly involved, will only exacerbate the problem.

The second possibility -- that
Moscow has become a state sponsor of terrorism -- seems more likely.If one views the situation in this way, then
Moscow is sending militants onto the territory of a foreign state and arming
them and their local supporters so that they can engage in the kind of violence
intended to destabilize the situation.

That fits most of the facts on the
ground over the past weeks, as Ukranian analysts have pointed out (rus.newsru.ua/columnists/13jun2014/dorogajizni.html).
It means that Russia has transformed itself into an international outcast that
must be isolated and contained until it changes course, and it means that the
Ukrainian authorities have every right to counter terrorism backed by Russia
and that they should be assisted in this task by other governments.

The
third possibility – that Russia is engaged in classical aggression – is clearly
now the most likely. Initially, Moscow did so covertly or at least covertly
enough for many Western leaders to deny the need to take steps to repel it. But
with the dispatch of Russian heavy armor across the Ukrainian border and the
shooting down of Ukrainian planes in recent days, the Russian invasion is no
longer covert.

What
the world sees instead is a Russian war of aggression, as unpleasant as it is
for anyone especially in the West to admit, because to acknowledge that is to
recognize that other countries have an obligation not just to denounce but to
stop this aggression lest by inaction they unintentionally encourage Putin to
engage in more aggression elsewhere.

Combatting
any and all of these three phenomena won’t be easy: their consequences,
especially in combination, are larger than many can imagine. But not combatting
them and even worse not acknowledging their existence opens the door to a more
violent and vicious world, one that hardly will be blocked by suggestions the
West will “raise the costs” of Russian action.

Putin
may be willing and even able to pay such imposed “costs” given both the
direness of his own situation and that of his country and the imperatives of
what he has already done.The only way
forward is to confront, contain and ultimately defeat him, a challenge that
tragically seems beyond the imagination or the capacity of the West today.